


Every Subject's Soul

by oxymoronic



Category: Henry IV - Shakespeare, Shakespeare - History Plays, The Hollow Crown (2012)
Genre: Bastardizing Shakespeare, Fix-It, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 05:12:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6840349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxymoronic/pseuds/oxymoronic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poins could see no way in which to flee the king without some admission of the truth, nor indeed any way his departure might be permitted which would not further mar his dignity. It fell upon him, then, to endure King Harry’s visitation with a quiet spirit, and hope it would not be of long duration.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Subject's Soul

**Author's Note:**

> look i have no idea why after four years my brain was like "now. fix this now." but here we are. (i mean, i say fix-it...)
> 
> huge huge thanks to placet for the readthrough, without whom you would have neither the pseudo-sex scene nor the iambic pentameter.

_“Every subject’s duty is the king’s; but every subject’s soul is his own.”_ – Henry V

 

The greatest and brightest majesties of chance could not have predicted the arrival of the new-crowned king to the Baron Cromwell’s court. Word had reached them of his tour about the country, of speeches made and merry feasts and jousts ridden afore the court, but none in this great barren and northern part of Henry’s vast kingdom had ever expected him to ride there. Neither the king nor his family had any great affection for Tattershall; and its owner, the third of his name, had no particular attachment to the king.

This had indeed chiefly been Ned Poins’ reason for fleeing there from London.

Learning nothing of the king’s imminence until his flag was spied upon the nearest hilltop, there had been no time to make arrangements – nor excuses, for Poins was much indebted to the Baron; he had adopted him most kindly upon his sudden and unexplained appearance some months ago, when he had naught but his name to recommend him. His name seemingly – and, this time, thankfully – eclipsed by that of Falstaff’s in perverting the young Prince’s conduct, he took up a lowly position in the baron’s household and, for the time being, made himself useful, as he so often had before.

The baron was fond of boasting, and Poins had seen no great issue in his acceptance of this praise; even if word did reach the ears of the king in London, he dutifully still followed the confines of King Harry’s law, for Nottingham was far beyond the ten-mile boundary around London he had had so ignobly thrown upon him. Now, of course, it trapped him cruelly, for the baron would not let him go, and Poins could see no way in which to flee the king without some admission of the truth, nor indeed any way his departure might be permitted which would not further mar his dignity. It fell upon him, then, to endure King Harry’s visitation with a quiet spirit, and hope it would not be of long duration.

To his dismay, it became evident hastily that this relief would not be granted to him, for the baron intended to boast of his usefulness to all the royal household, and indeed to make the king a gift of his services. This humiliation for Poins at the Baron’s hand would not be borne, of course – Poins was certain of the king’s exactitude in conjuring some bright excuse; but Poins would not, as he hoped, be permitted to bear the torment of the king’s proximity in solitude.

The household stood assembled to greet the king upon the gleaming mortars of the courtyard, with banners bright unfurled, gleaming in the daylight and snapping in the wind. There was no little ceremony to his arrival; they played merry host to harsh trumpet-sounds and clattered horses’-hooves long before the king himself dismounted, taking up the baron’s hand and greeting him most readily. Behind him rode Clarence and Gloucester, and they took in the scene with a sense of wary satisfaction. They had been but boys, the last Poins had sighted them, and he wondered with the selfsame absent dismay whether they too would recognise his name and encourage their brother to execute high majesty and see him hanged.

Within these gloomy reckonings, Poins missed his introduction to the king; until by luck the baron chanced to jostle him, and he heard him speak. “ – and to your lord’s most gracious service, permit me to offer this Edward Poins, who has proved himself invaluable these months past in his patience and his counsel.”

“Indeed,” said the king, and Poins, for all his courage, could not find it within himself to face him. “I shall be thankful of his aid, for my man took ill on leaving Leicester, and I have been without good company for near a fortnight.”

The baron smiled, took up his hand, and led the king towards his castle, saying, “Then let us dine, and drink, and make you merry again, my lord, and we will banish any memory of the road most speedily.”

Poins had not turned his look from upon the castle’s palisades, unable without madness to comprehend the luck still granted to him; but upon the king’s departure he threw his gaze around the court, fearful and abandoned to the notion that great ridicule would soon fall upon him. But in truth the court were idly following their king; Clarence and Gloucester had taken no account of him; and, by chance or fate or the righteous hand of God, King Harry had not struck him down aforethought.

 

 

The baron took great pleasure in dining with the king, and late was the hour indeed that saw his royal guests abed, wending drunkenly down empty halls and laid wretched by their merriment. Poins, for his part, had stomached nothing through the night, and had fallen foul of restless haste to loiter in King Henry’s chamber. Often had he thought of flight, but his graceless curiosity took the better of him, for he could not fathom in a thousand years why the king had granted him such strange courtesy. And thus he waited, and he fretted, and he cursed the clock for turning, for it granted him no great reprieve – and then, at the turning of the midnight hour, there came a knock upon the door, and the grand and welcomed Harry Fifth came soberly into the room.

“Forgive the lateness of the hour,” said the king, and Poins could think of no stranger thing than a fresh-anointed king handing out such blunt apologies. “Thy master has been most accomplished in his merry-making, and I have fallen foul of it.”

“Make no apologies, lord; but employ me as you will,” Poins said, his level gaze resting firm above King Harry’s brow, “and bid me hence.”

There came no answer from the king, and Poins, who had before tonight thought his distress had all passed, despised the man again for the sheer extension of his suffering. “Forgive me,” he said, at last, and again Poins could scarce comprehend this folly. “I fear a great madness has come over me.” He took a step across the room, made as if to raise his hand. “I never thought to look upon thee with my waking eyes again – ”

“Mock me not, my lord,” Poins interrupted, pressed back against the wall. “Allow me to attend on you or bid me hence.”

The king’s brow now cloven with a frown, he paused in his advance. “Why thinkst thou this is mockery, and not the hand of friendship?”

“Friendship?” echoed Poins, wretched in his incredulity. “I had understood it pleased thee to classify my friendship with the brigands, rogues, murderers, thieves, and wastrels with whom thou once took company; and that in sum, I was to be found in all ways base, vile, and shameful, and to be chased from the streets of London. If this is indeed how thy gracious majesty would signify his friendship, I would say he keeps strange principles indeed.”

In his anger, he had overstepped; the king would surely now come to slay him, either by the hangman’s hand or the bite of the sword still hanging in its scabbard. “This is indeed thy summation of my actions,” the king replied, with no little wonder in his voice. “Faith, I had not meant it so.”

“Your intentions, however amiable, are not relevant,” said Poins, bluntly; but he could not bring himself to raise his gaze from upon the floor.

The king took his words in solemn silence, and it was long before he spoke again. “Thou wilt think it strange of me, I wonder, to ask for thy forgiveness.”

“I want no forgiveness, my lord,” Poins replied, and there was in his manner nothing but indifference. “Only my freedom and the courtesies obliged to me as a man of certain station.”

“No forgiveness and no friendship,” said the king, and Poins, with a rare and daring glance, found an unusual softness to his expression. “In faith, Ned, I would not have it so.”

Poins’ bitterness then fell compounded; for the king to taunt him so could not be endured. “Then I myself must plead for mercy,” said Poins, “For I foresee no greater misery on both our parts than would ensue from the continuance of our acquaintance – ”

“Misery?” asked the king.

“Aye,” said Poins, hewn irresolute by his despairs. “As I spake.”

The king seemed then to shrink a little at the words, and did not chance to look at him. “This is a grave charge indeed,” said the king, and took a seat upon the bed. “I never thought to find thee so – offended.”

“In my position I am contented,” answered Poins, his voice a crafted level. “As are you in yours.”

“Fortunate, yes,” said the king, quietly. “But not contented.”

The king’s impatience came as no great astonishment to his oldest intimate, and he bore it with the selfsame intolerance as ever. “You have held the crown for a sparrow’s wingbeat, lord,” he said, in irritation. “To France, or to Scotland, or to Flanders go. Your great legacy will come with time.”

Surprise itself took hold of Poins as the king then brought up a smile, wide and golden. “Thou proves thyself as ever the chiefest and least flattering of my advisors,” said he, dryly. “In truth, any new obsequiousness would serve only to lower thee in mine affections.”

At this, an icy incredulity took hold of Poins’ mind. “Thy affections?” he repeated, astounded.

“Aye,” said the king, that great softness come again fresh into his voice. “Surely thou dost not think me entirely transformed.”

“Thy own deception has took hold of thee, my sweet and noble lord,” answered Poins, rendered arctic by his fury. “For by my faith, I know with certainty I held nothing but the love of a phantom, which cannot itself be whole and hale.”

For all the world, Poins might have torn the crown from on his brow and broken it asunder, such was the marked change to King Harry’s countenance, the paleness of his cheeks and the hollowing within his eyes. “Ned,” said he, and a voice unbroken by battle-fury was shaking not a little, “dearest Ned – ”

“Nay, speak not my name, lord,” said Poins, his heart still full of bitterness. “It is all I now possess. I prithee, remind me not of the sum of your discourtesies and bid me hence.”

For a time, the king did neither, but sat there thunderstruck upon the bed and summoned no voice from within his chest. Then, at last, he spoke, and his words were soft as starlight. “Vain and pale as it may be against thy expectations,” said he, “thou hast my heart, dear Ned, and always have. Mine. Here,” and at this he pressed his own palm against his chest. “Beating beneath my breast.”

So wholly unexpected came this answer that Poins himself could not bear to find the truth in it. “Prithee, sir – taunt me not – bid me hence – ”

“Am I not thy king?”

“God in heaven,” answered Poins, briefly desperate with solemnity. “From first breath til the last, through a thousand thousand suns. Thou knowest this.”

“Then know thee too that I am truthful in all things. Well,” he paused, to smile a little, “perhaps not all. But I beseech thee, doubt me not, for I speak now with every compartment of my soul – ”

“I beg thee, sir,” said Poins, soft again, “to cease this, and bid me hence. No good can come of it.”

It was then the king’s part to yield to incredulity, for though he heard Poins’ words most clearly, he could not comprehend them. “Wouldst thou rather go whither thou pleasest and think thyself despised than hear the truth?” he said, at length.

“Aye, sir,” answered Poins, quietly. “For the truth doth come with such a solemn sentence that I fear I cannot bear it.”

The king, for all his majesty, could find no answer to this truth; for though he spoke with honesty, so indeed did Poins. In truth, all the world had taken against their intimacy, and would not readily welcome their companionship again. “What sayest thou if we bear it but a little, and together?” said Harry, at last, with great softness to his voice, and came to stand by Poins beside the window. “Couldst thou take up the heavy mantle of my love again for one night on its own?”

“Perhaps,” said Poins, in the slightest of breaths, and for his answer Harry kissed him, warm and welcome and much awaited.

“God above,” said Harry, once he had removed but a little, his fingers still loose in Poins’ hair. “Thou art my undoing, Ned. What think thee now? See now why I cast thee off?”

“I think thou art a coward, sir,” said Poins, though his voice trembled with the words. “And now here lies thy cowardice compounded, as thou mock’st us both with what we may not have.” He drew a breath, and then away. “Forgive me,” he said, shaking still. “I have lingered here too long.”

“Prithee, Ned,” came Harry’s answer, quiet and forsaken. “Tarry but a little. One night alone is all I ask.”

“And then tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow I ride for York,” replied the king in all solemnity, and Poins’ face turned foul with misery.

“This will not be borne,” said Poins, distractedly, and threw his gaze about the room, pacing a little with his wretchedness. “I cannot bear it.”

“Wouldst thou rather we parted thus, in such distemper?” asked the king, incredulous once more, and Poins’ distraction transformed in part to fury.

“I would rather have never set eyes on thee again!” he cried, and in its wake the very night around them seemed tenfold wrought in silence and in stillness, save for the roughened cadence of his breath between them, and the calling of the wind about the door.

“I’faith,” heavily said the king, after some moments’ contemplation, “in this I can have no such agreement, for it gladdens my heart to see thee yet still living, safe and in good company.” He passed a hand across his brow, and with it took a shaking breath. “In this, in time, I might be satisfied, I suppose.”

But Poins still stood within the chamber; Poins had made no further move towards the door. “By my faith,” he said, at last, seemingly ashamed of his ill-temper, “no good can come of this.”

“A little might,” said Harry; refreshed once more in optimism, he again drew closer to his friend. “If we are but fortunate.”

At this, Poins turned his head and kissed him; and though he was all gentleness at first, with speed he became as if a dead man drowning, reaching up for life. “I thought myself despised,” said Poins, with shaking breath, “despised and deceived by thee – ”

The king kissed him fiercely yet again, but stopped to answer, “God’s love – thou art not, Ned – thou art not – ”

Silence, then, as they took to bed, trod once afresh in a house of ghosts, followed the patterns their affections had oft drawn them down for so many years before. To lie again together was both familiar and yet strange, for though they knew every piece of each their bodies, never had they chanced such circumstance before; to spend a night unbroken in a welcome bed. To see clear in the candlelight the vast litanies of their expressions, wrought desperate and beautiful by their desire, to catch the edges of their pleasure ricocheting restlessly in the gasping of their mouths, the arcing of their backs, the closing of their eyes.

Poins lay beneath his king and watched in quiet reverence as he worked them to completion, but it was not until he pressed their mouths together once again that Harry found his final pleasure; when Poins, with shaking breath and his own end dawning, gasped softly in his ear, “Harry, Harry, _Hal_.”

 

 

 

Around them, the night was quiet and still, long before the dawn. “Hast thou thought about me often, since we last met?” asked Poins at length, glancing up to meet King Harry’s eye.

“To any other man, I would say nay,” said the king, quietly. “But deception to thee I never spake.”

The sincerity unlooked-for, Poins could not keep King Harry’s eye. “And yet you did not send for me,” he said, quietly, tracing instead the pattern of the canopy. The king lay beside him on his side, and for his part he had not looked away from him for near half an hour.

“Thou knowest I could not,” said Harry, with no hint of anger to his voice.

“I know no such thing,” Poins muttered, irritably. “I am not Jack Falstaff, and have never been.”

The king took to tracing the aspects of his skin, and Poins began to watch his hand as it wandered, the steady rise and fall. “Thy names were too oft spoke together, regardless of the truth in such comparisons.” His hand paused in its adventures as he turned his gaze instead to Poins’ face. “Faith, Ned, I did not wish it so.”

To Poins’ distaste, he had to concede there was some truth in this, and with so little enmity between them, could not bring himself to further force the quarrel. “At thy coronation, thou said’st our banishments need not be eternal,” he said, in its stead. “Didst thou speak in truth or jest?”

“In truth, by my life, I swear it,” said Harry, determined with sincerity, and to Poins then came a dizzying, unlooked-for hope so fragile he could not bear to look at it direct.

“Then dost thou find my character sufficiently reformed?” he asked, slow, uncertain, and glanced up to see the notion grow bright on Harry’s face, the desperate warmth of his understanding spread through every vein.

“In time, perhaps, I do,” quietly said the king, and smiled, warm and open. “I will.”


End file.
